ST1.1

ST1.1: The STEM school/program supports non-traditional student participation through outreach to groups often underrepresented in STEM program areas.

River Ridge Academy offers a unique STEM experience to all students in our school grades PK-8 regardless of grade level, interest level, gender, ethnicity or specialized program. Every student in our school in grades K-5 participate in Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Launch within their classrooms daily. In addition, PK-4 students are enrolled in a LEGO Robotics Lab weekly where they are exposed to the Engineering Design Process and a curriculum that supports STEM based applications related to real world problems. In grade 5 every student is scheduled for computer technology as an encore course and in grades 6-8 every student is scheduled for a minimum of one semester each year of the PLTW curricula (Intro to Career Clusters, Design and Modeling, Automation and Robotics) during their encore periods. In addition, all middle school students have the options of enrolling in other STEM based course offerings of Media Arts and Google Basics (.5 high school credit) at the middle school level.

Below is a chart of the number of students enrolled in our STEM curriculum courses.

Population Type (K-8)

Enrollment in STEM courses

Percentage

Total

1037

100%

Male

526

Female

511

Asian

26

Black or African American

108

Hispanic/Latino

246

Two or more races

41

White

613

Other

3

Students with Disabilities

68

River Ridge Academy is a school of choice for Project Lead the Way (PLTW) and Montessori. PLTW places an emphasis on curriculum that encourages hands-on engagement, problem solving and the use of technology for research, collaboration and project presentation. The Montessori method is based on a child’s natural desire to learn. Students actively learn within a prepared environment of attractive, carefully sequenced materials and engage in many independent tasks that they complete at their own pace. The Montessori program is organized into multi-aged classrooms that include the lower elementary for 1st through 3rd graders and the upper elementary that include 4th and 5th graders.